A Heavy-Hearted Announcement

One year ago, I wrote about my Anti-Death Spray: my reasons to stay alive and joyful. The list started with my wife’s name. Today, after months of agony and resistance, I removed her from my list.

Kelsey and I are divorcing. Even now, after everything we went through to come to this immensely sorrowful decision, I find myself rereading those words in disbelief. I don’t want this to be happening. I stand by my vows to her, that I love her with a love bigger than myself. I feel eviscerated by this change.

I’m sure many of you who know me personally are shocked by this announcement. I get it. Hell, I’m shocked too. I could never have foreseen this outcome. But that’s what everyone in this situation says, huh?

I won’t get into the details here. There’s an angry and wounded voice in my heart that wants to heard, but letting that voice out to rage helps no one.

What does help is updating my list of happy things to keep living for.

I still love Kelsey, but she can’t be at the top of my list anymore.

She’s not the only part of my list that’s changed, though. Life is change. Over the past year I’ve found many new treasures to cherish. New video games and new music. New recipes and new restaurants. New friends and new adventures. I’ve learned to appreciate an assortment of experiences that would never have made my list last April and I’m grateful for that.

Instead of asking me about this enormously difficult moment in my life, I encourage you to review your own list of loves. What has changed in your world? What new joys await you?

I may be quiet for a while as I process this lifestyle shift, but I’m still Abi, I still know who I am and what I want, and I still have happiness somewhere on my horizon.

As do you.

Happy Birthday, You Potatoes with Eyes

A simple fact of life: when you get pets, you get weird. Sometimes, you get sharing-licks-of-candy weird, or dress-the-dog-in-a-sailor-suit weird, or talk-in-a-specific-voice-to-denote-you're-speaking-on-behalf-of-your-animal weird. Often, it's all those variations of weird and more.

It's no surprise, then, that Kelsey and I threw a party for our puppies, Billie and Binx, on their first birthday last Sunday, complete with hand-decorated doggy cookies.

They are obviously having a wonderful time and Binx is definitely not crying in my arms.

Look, I never expected to be this kind of pet owner. I love animals, of course. Anyone who knew me growing up can attest to that. But the birthday-cookie-decorating, the puppy-sized "I heart my mummy" Halloween shirts, the way we pack our girls a "diaper bag" for every outing? Yup, we're in deep.

Kelsey and I aren't the only ones guilty of babying our two chihuahua-maltese mixes (malchis, if you're in the know). It all started with Kelsey's mother, Laura. That's right, folks, I'm blaming the mother-in-law, who shares her birthday with the dogs, and for whom I did NOT make birthday cookies. 

Billie and Binx are the only two pups from a litter belonging to Laura's dogs. Around the time of their birth, Kelsey and I had been not-too-seriously looking at shelter pups. In true lesbian fashion, we had our eyes on a sweet pitbull girl named Tulip (if you're out there, Tulip, we still love you and hope you're doing well). But two pups in the hand are worth one in the pound, right? So we agreed we'd take the puppies once they'd been weaned.

And so began the messages, sent on behalf of the puppies to their "parents." Little "good morning, Mommies!" texts with pictures of the hairy potatoes cupped in Laura's hands, that kind of thing. We took it one step further and essentially did a pregnancy-reveal photo shoot with our dogs-to-be's tiny, girlish collars.   

The gay agenda.

My parents aren't absolved either. I've caught both Mom and Dad holding Binx to their shoulders like an infant, bobbing in that soothing, parental way, and stroking her mess of wiry fur. A couple weekends back, my parents, our newly-wed friends Luke and Alé, Kelsey, and I were hanging out at the lake, having a gay old time. We four millennials lounged on the docked deckboat, not quite ready for the chill of the early summer water. On the deck of the cabin up the hill from us, my mother paced with Binxie cradled in her arms.

"She needs grandbabies," Alé observed.

Grandbabies are going to have to wait. In fact, I wonder if the degree of our dog-doting is related to how long we're going to wait for actual babies. When I say "we," I'm also sweeping in the rest of our age bracket, who have a lower birthrate than any previous generation. 

The thing is, I can't see financial stability or affordable healthcare in my future. A huge chunk of my peers are staring toward the same grim horizon of high debt, low wages, and a hostile political climate. Young people who can naturally have children could incur financial ruin with a surprise pregnancy. Queer couples and folks facing fertility-related obstacles can't afford to try for kids even if they could maybe afford to raise them. 

Besides that, I wonder if it's even ethical to bring other human beings onto a planet that's hurtling toward an environmental meltdown. 

But I could be wrong. Maybe it's too early to assume we'll never afford a family. Maybe things on the world stage will turn back around. Before I get too gloom-and-doomy, I have to remind myself that Kelsey and I are just getting started. Even if finances and biology weren't considerations, I don't think we're emotionally prepared for actual baby-rearing. Right now, we have the freedom to work on our own creative projects, to wander off on weekend adventures without weeks of preparation, and to simply waste time on the couch playing video games. 

This is a special window of time in our lives, and my professional-grade fretting about the future isn't doing us any good. I hope someday we'll have the resources, health, and all-around stability for the mostly hairless kind of kiddo, but for now, I'm satisfied with coddling our doggos. 

Happy birthday to the ambulatory cheese curds.

Mom Friend

You know what I love? Found families. Found families are my JAM. There's something amazing about growing up and developing a new family unit with which to navigate the stormy sea of adulthood. 

Also, found family members are obligated to laugh at the dumb crap I post.

I'm lucky enough to have a great found family AND a great blood family. But today, I'm focusing on the dynamics of my found family. Sorry, blood fam. 

I read somewhere (here, actually) that millennials don't feel like adults until age 29 or later, largely because the key "grown up" milestones (like financial independence, owning a house, having kids) are less accessible in today's economy than they were in our parents' economy. I often feel like a little kid playing dress-up (in old hand-me-down clothes from my mother because I can't afford new clothes) when I'm sitting at my desk at work. Like I said in a previous post, it all feels like a desperate game of pretend. 

Which is why found families are especially important to many people in my generation. It's reassuring to have a group of people on your side to play pretend with, to fill in for the guidance and protection of the folks who raised you. 

Particularly blessed within a found family is the Mom Friend. We've all either had one or been one, regardless of generation. Typically, it's the friend who sends you those, "Did you get home safe?" texts, or excels at herding and caring for drunk friends, or dispenses warm advice (even when you don't want to hear it). 

In my various friend circles, I know of a few such pseudo-moms. And I have friends who have now become actual moms (holy wowza!). They are pillars of strength, beacons of hope, and carriers of Tylenol. These are the true Mom Friends.

And then there's me.

Usually, I'm the Whiskey Cousin of the friend group. The one that's reeeaaal heckin' strange, occasionally funny in a living cartoon character kind of way, and should not be trusted with adult responsibilities (or sharp objects). 

But found families need some kind of parental unit to maintain order, and as they say in Jurassic Park: "Life, uh, finds a way."

I have falsely ascended to Mom Friend status within my household. Like Trump in the White House, I have no business being there, I'm woefully ill-prepared, and my actions could easily lead to utter disaster.

Why did this happen?

• I'm the breadwinner of the family, kinda. I have a stable job (achieved largely through good luck, good timing, and good connections) with a predictable flow of income. I have no debts to pay (once again, through no merit of my own and purely through the generosity, forethought, and fortunate circumstances of my birth family). Because of this, it makes sense to have most of the household bills under my name. I'm in charge of a lot of the budget (and in turn, the meal plans), which grants a certain authority and responsibility to me.
• I'm neurotic. I worry about absolutely everything, and I worry about the fact that I worry about everything. So I fret over money, my friends' well-being, the diversity of food we're eating, having plenty of toilet paper on hand at all times, etc.
• I'm paranoid that things won't get done if I don't do them, whether or not that's true.
• I'm the oldest member of the household, and also the only one to be the eldest sibling.
• I compulsively give out advice, regardless of how much I actually know about a topic.
• It's my fault that we're all living together, making me the inadvertent glue of our quirky family.

I tend to be the one making decisions and delegating tasks to Kelsey and Cade. I'm usually in charge of meals, or at least am the one that is asked the mom-est of all questions: "When's dinner?" I'm the one who gets up in the middle of the night if the puppies cry (and also the one who almost always takes them out in the morning, regardless of our collective work schedules). I do most of the grocery runs, or when we all go together, I'm the one slapping Kelsey's wrist for sneaking Fruity Pebbles into the cart and getting unnecessarily flustered.

I take on a lot of Mom Friend responsibilities in keeping the house together, but I'm not a good Mom Friend. I'm the equivalent of the mom that had kids too early, is prone to emotional breakdowns, and gets wine-drunk on the back porch and tells her kids way too much about her sex life.

Fortunately, I'm not alone.

Actual footage of me, Cade, and Kelsey getting crunked in the kitchen (Source)

I may have Mom Friend tendencies, but so do Kelsey and Cade.

Cade is absurdly thoughtful and gave us Christmas gifts so perfect that Santa would feel sub-par as a gift-giver next to her. She makes tea to comfort us, offers to help in any way she can, and helps keep the house from being a cluttery disaster hole. 

Kelsey has repaired broken doors, torn porch screens, missing tiles, and more. Does that make her a Dad Friend? I mean, between that, the beer, baseball hats, and the terrible jokes... But she also introduces delicious recipes to us, decorates for the holidays, and often greets me with a bourbon cocktail when I come home from work (and if that's not right out of a 1950s Home Economics book, I don't know what is). 

We're a bunch of surrogate moms to each other, and I think that's a good way to be. We learned lessons of love from our parents, and it's nice to pass those on to each other, using our various abilities to solve the diverse challenges of growing up in the 21st century. 

Perhaps we're not top-shelf Mom Friends, but I think we make a good family. And really, everyone could stand to mother each other a little more.

Gettin' Hitched Is a Helluva Business

This morning, I wake up to an email from someone demanding $500, which is apparently past due. I'm already running late because my phone has decided to retire one vital function at a time and today that function was the alarm. So I'm standing in a half-asleep panic in my room, one leg in my cat hair couture slacks, grandma-style bra severely misaligned, staring at this email and wondering who I owe money to now. 

There are a few possibilities that I jump to first. To start with, medical bills. Is this unknown person reminding me of yet another unpaid hospital bill? A half hour of "therapy" (for an illness I don't have, by the way, but that's another long, strange tale) that slipped through the cracks? A charge for breathing in the proximity of a hospital, even if I didn't check in? Because I'm still getting random bills for treatment I received 7 months ago, and I'm barely joking about the bizarre charges I've received at random intervals since then.

But the email seems too casual for that. So maybe it's from the small marketing business I use to promote Necessaries? Because working with them has been a little... chaotic. There doesn't seem to be a lot of structure, and it wouldn't surprise me if they forgot that I'd already paid for their services. Hey, it's a small business, and it hasn't figured itself out yet.

And what if it's a scam? Standing partially nude and with my chin still caked in drool, I'm outraged by the thought. So I fire back, announcing I don't know who this is, or what the charge means. If it's a medical thing, this is unprofessional. If it's the marketing service, it's sloppy and incorrect. If it's a scam, don't these people know I'm broke?

At the moment I hit send, I remember the only remaining giant money-suck after the medical and book business options. 

The wedding.

Source

Oh my gawd, I've just sassed the kind woman who is in charge of our venue. I immediately apologize and explain my mistake. I don't remember her telling us about another $500 charge due 6 months before the wedding, but I totally buy it. My head has been so chock full of wedding crap that it's leaking out my ears, and I'm sure I'm losing important details because of that (despite the elaborate wedding planner binder my mother-in-law-to-be provided). 

Between the music and the dresses and the invitations and the photographer and the guest list that is 85% people I've never heard of, my brain is turning to soup. Not just soup. Spicy, angry, bowel-singeing chili. Whenever Kelsey and I have to "real talk" about wedding junk, I have this invisible line I risk crossing between "This is fine and we're getting things done and maybe I'm even enjoying it" and "Why the HELL am I letting this stupid, sexist industry devour my soul, empty my family's pockets, and fill my Facebook feed with advertisements about 'saying yes to the man (lol) of my dreams'?" 

And when I cross that line, I'm one nasty, whiskey-swigging, teeth-gnashing bride-to-be. 

Source

But who wouldn't be? This wedding stuff is insane. There's so much to deal with, and every single person you encounter seems to have a strong opinion on how your wedding should go. You have to make thousands of decisions on vendors, and pay them all handsomely for quality. You have to sort friends and family friends and family (even the family members you think your mom might be making up for the sake of adding more names) before sending invitations and you KNOW someone is gonna have their heart broken, but the venue just isn't big enough. You have to make yourself pretty. Absurdly, fairy tale pretty, even if you were just diagnosed with a disease that makes you gain weight, grow a beard, and become enveloped in acne. 

The worst of it is turning down everyone else's opinion without making enemies or being labeled a bridezilla. What an awful term. You know, every vendor I've encountered is used to working with the bride, not the groom. So the bride is the one expected to have opinions, yet when she does, she's mocked for it. And the groom is just, I don't know, along for the ride? This stuff doesn't quite apply for Kelsey and me, I suppose, but the weird "This day is about you!" vs "Here are my 8,000 opinions on your wedding and if you turn them down then you're a rampaging monster!" dynamic is still there.

Source

It's all part of the business model. It's an industry, plain and cold and simple. And it's an industry that targets women, because the significance of marriage and "our special day" has been pressed on us since birth. So women end up in charge of everything, but society has this weird way of demonizing women who are in charge of things. It's a nasty Catch 22.

But it's OK to still like weddings, even though they're often problematic and overly commercialized. After all, regardless of the venue and cost and guest list, it IS our day. And I'll try to make it as perfect as possible, and I'll get frustrated, and I'll shoot people down if I have to, and it still won't be perfect.

And that's fine. We're not perfect. So we'll throw the best damn party we can, and invite as many loved ones as we can, and pay the outrageous costs knowing that sometimes, you just gotta.

And next time I get a confusing email asking for money, I won't immediately punch the wall and throw a tantrum, and I'll try to think about the dozens of people who just want to help me make our big day one to remember for the rest of our lives.

(Seriously, I bruised my hand.)

(Did I use too many gifs? Naaaaah...)